


Every Year's a Souvenir That Slowly Fades Away

by Deafen_the_Satellites



Series: Still How the Strong Survive [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 100 years young, Century Long Love Story, Coney Island, Epistolary, M/M, happy birthday steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 06:05:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15503943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deafen_the_Satellites/pseuds/Deafen_the_Satellites
Summary: The end of the line is just Stillwell Ave.





	Every Year's a Souvenir That Slowly Fades Away

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Souvenir ___by Billy Joel
> 
> For once, my beta, [Femme_Daltia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Femme_Daltia), gets a break from my inability to present her with a simple linear narrative and can enjoy love letters sent from Bucky to Steve in her physical mailbox. Just because we have the internet now doesn’t mean we can’t still send fic through the mail to one another. Helps keep the U.S. Postal Service afloat. 
> 
> The following was written on four reprinted vintage postcards purchased at Coney Island on July 4th, 2018.

July 4th, 2018

Steve,

It’s your birthday and I’m at Coney Island.  We used to come here for your birthday. Most crowded day of the year.  It’s smaller now, fewer parks, fewer people.  One park calls itself Luna Park, but it’s new, on the site the kids of the Space Age, the kids who should’ve been ours, knew as Astroland.  It bugs me that they use the Funny Face from Steeplechase Park but, eh, they don’t know the difference.  I heard that asshole in the White House’s father is what finally destroyed Steeplechase in the early 60s.  Had a party to throw bricks through the stained glass windows. A plague o’er that whole fucking family. Dreamland burned to the ground before we came around and some figure the glory days were on their way out by the War. 

I figure it was pretty damn glorious when we were young. Back when I didn’t even know my own name I remembered the cacophony, the smells, the taste.  Digging a boardwalk splinter (the worst splinters on earth) out of my foot while you laughed at me. Yeah, I remembered you there, even when I didn’t know you.  They say this place was almost destroyed a decade ago. Battered by time, seasoned and strange, the City almost did away with Coney Island. But this salty little freak kicked and screamed and lived. It’s healthier than it’s been in a long time, even if it can never go back and be what it once was.  But if ever there was a place that bore it’s scars, spun them into a legend, and sold them as an attraction, it’s here.

Still crowded on the 4th of July.  When you were small, your Ma used to say all these people came out just for your birthday. God, Steve.  You nearly killed her and the doctors doubted you see your 1st, nevermind your 5th birthday. You must’ve been born middle finger first ‘cause here you are, 100 years young.

I love you, you stupid centenarian punk. I’ve loved you forever and I’d say I’ll love you ‘till the day I die but I already did that and I still love you.  I’m with you ‘till the end of the line, pal, and the end of the line is just Stillwell Ave.  I need to lie with my head in your lap on the beach and close my eyes and hear the rattle of the Cyclone, the seagulls, the happy shrieking in languages I don’t understand (and some I do – there are a lot of Russians down there now) and reach up and touch your beautiful old man face. 

It’d be like we never left.

HAPPY 100th BIRTHDAY, STEVE.

 

Love,

Bucky

**Author's Note:**

> • Steeplechase Park (1897-1964, site of present day MCU Park, home of the minor league baseball team, the Brooklyn Cyclones), Luna Park (1903-1946, across Surf Ave from the present Luna Park), Dreamland (1904-1911, site of present Aquarium), Astroland (1962-2008, site of present day Luna Park) , Luna Park 2.0 (2010-present). 
> 
> • To be fair, Robert Moses played a huge part in trying to destroy Coney Island in the 1960s, but it was Fred Trump who, after purchasing Steeplechase Park, held a party with bikini clad models and invited guests to gleefully smash windows and hack apart decorative elements. He was seeking to have a the area rezoned from an amusement district to residential. He failed.


End file.
